The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  With a flash of colors, Elsa appeared.

  Haern breathed out a sigh. She was a powerful Slider, and with her transporting them, at least he didn’t have to worry about not reaching their destination. Some would be less capable, and some of the Sliders didn’t have the ability to carry too many people with them. Elsa was powerful, and he suspected she had the ability to carry several people with her when she Slid.

  “I do this for Rsiran,” Elsa said.

  “I’ll make sure I let him know,” Haern said.

  Elsa nodded. She held out her arms, and Haern and Galen each grabbed one. They needed to hold on tight. And he waited for Galen, grabbing on to one arm, gripping Elsa in such a way that he wouldn’t lose her during the Slide. Supposedly it was possible to get lost during a Slide, and that idea terrified him. He didn’t mind the process of Sliding itself, but just thinking about the possibility of getting trapped in between, wherever that was, left him trembling.

  His mother glanced at him. “Bring him back to us.”

  Haern nodded.

  Elsa Slid.

  They traveled quickly and emerged from the Slide on a grassy plain far beyond the city, with the mountains rising in the distance to the west. It would take at least two days to travel this far on foot, and by horseback it would take the better part of the day. They had done it in a heartbeat.

  “Where now?” Elsa asked.

  “Asador, to start.”

  “To start?”

  “I was asked to send word, and Asador is the most likely place to be able to get word out. But from there, it might be necessary to travel elsewhere.”

  Elsa shook her head. “I can’t do that. If I’m gone too long—”

  “Just get us to Asador,” Haern said. He glanced over to Galen. “It might take time, right?”

  Galen nodded. “It might.”

  “And even if she is in Asador, you won’t know for a while.” Haern didn’t necessarily know how such things went, but he imagined that finding a famous and feared assassin would require a little more work than simply walking into the city and demanding to know where she was.

  “Bring us to Asador, and then you can return. We’ll take it from there.”

  Elsa studied him a moment. “I will get you to the edge of Asador, and no further. You’ll have to make your way from there.”

  He didn’t even have a chance to nod. The Slide carried them quickly, and before he could even think, they emerged with a sprawling city spread out in front of them. Smoke from a dozen different chimneys rose in the distance, mixing together, spiraling toward clouds in the sky. The ocean must be nearby, for he heard the sound of waves, though more violent than what he was accustomed to in Elaeavn. Then again, maybe that was only because he spent most of his time far from the sea. If he spent more of it closer to the shore, would it sound as violent as it did now?

  Elsa shook them off. “This is as far as I can take you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She grunted. “Don’t thank me. You have a dangerous task ahead of you.”

  With another shimmering flash, she Slid away, leaving him and Galen standing on the hillside, looking out toward the distant city of Asador. He glanced over at Galen, expecting some insight as to what he planned, but the other man simply stared, his gaze lingering for a long moment. His eyes had a haunted quality to them, as if whatever he had seen—or expected to see—had left him damaged.

  “Let’s get moving,” Galen said.

  Haern half-expected there to be some easy road to take into the city, but Elsa had transported them into the middle of a field. The city wasn’t far, probably no more than an hour’s walk away, but he felt she could have brought them closer.

  When he said something to Galen, the man shook his head. “Too many still remember what happened before.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was fighting in the city. Too many people with our abilities were seen. Rumors spread, and… they aren’t fond of people from Elaeavn as it is, and once you get out to these distant cities, they are suspicious of things they don’t understand.”

  “Is the suspicion because they don’t understand us, or is it because we don’t interact with them?”

  Galen glanced over at him. “Do you see them as somehow unrelated?”

  Haern shrugged. He supposed he didn’t. “You seem to know Asador better than most.”

  Galen stared into the distance. “I spent considerable time outside of the city when I was younger.”

  “I didn’t think anyone spent much time out of the city. I thought my father was one of the few who did.”

  Galen tapped the pouch at his waist. “Your father left the city, but he never spent time outside of it.”

  “I’m not sure I understand the difference.”

  “Trust me. There is one.”

  “Why don’t you care for him?”

  “It’s long ago. It doesn’t matter.”

  “But it does.”

  “No. It doesn’t matter. We serve the same purpose now.”

  That told Haern that at one point, they must not have served the same purpose. Most of the people he spent any time around revered his father, even with him being absent as often as he was. It was practically refreshing to be around someone who felt the same as him.

  “My mother tells me that you were an assassin?” Haern shouldn’t ask, but he was curious, and if nothing else, he had quite a bit of time to spend with Galen, and he might as well get to know the man.

  “Your mother talks too much.”

  Haern chuckled. “Did you know her well?”

  Galen shook his head.

  “You don’t like her, either?”

  “Who said I don’t like your mother?”

  “You don’t need to say it. It’s more in the way you speak of her.”

  Galen sighed. “Do you know anything of the old practices within the city?”

  “What sort of practices?”

  “The old practices where they exiled men and women from the city for perceived wrongs.”

  Haern frowned. He’d heard of such things, but they had been discontinued prior to his birth, so long ago that it no longer mattered. It was such an arcane practice that he didn’t even understand it. What purpose did such a thing serve? There seemed to be better ways to reform criminals, and there certainly had to be better methods than sending people out of the city.

  “You?” he asked, and Galen nodded. “What did you do?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Haern frowned. He supposed it didn’t matter. If he was Cael’s consort, he had a position of prestige that few Elvraeth managed. With something like that, he must have been fully welcomed back to the city.

  And still, Haern couldn’t help but wonder what Galen had done that had led to his banishment.

  And more importantly, what had happened to allow him to return?

  “How did you become an assassin?”

  “Are we going to continue with these questions?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know that I’ve ever met anybody like you.”

  “Someone who has been Forgotten?”

  That was the old term for the exile, and Haern thought it incredibly cruel. Not only had these people been exiled, but the people who had known and loved them were forced to pretend they never existed.

  “Someone who lived outside of the city for any amount of time.”

  “It’s not nearly as glamorous as you seem to think.”

  “I didn’t say it was.”

  “And I sort of fell into my role as an assassin. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s something I did.”

  “Were you good at it?”

  “Good enough to nearly take down your father.”

  “You can’t say something like that and then not tell me anything more,” Haern said.

  Galen glanced over at him. “What more do you want to know?”

  Haern chuckled. “All of it. What happened that pitted you against my fa
ther?”

  “He tried to kill Cael.”

  Haern stumbled. His father had tried to kill Cael? How had he never heard that before? And more importantly, why would his father have attempted to kill Cael Elvraeth?

  There was so much about his father he didn’t know. How many of the stories told about him were even true? How much was real and how much exaggerated? When it came to his father, it was difficult to know. Quite a bit might be exaggerated, although Haern had seen just how powerful his father could be.

  “What did he do? Why did he try to kill Cael?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “And by that, you mean you don’t want to tell me.”

  “No. By that I mean it’s complicated. None of us are the same as we were back then. I certainly am not. Even your father probably isn’t the same person, though to be honest, I don’t really know. I know he’s continued to pursue the threat of the Forgers, so…”

  “Why did my father try to kill her?”

  “He was set up for a job. He did it to find information, but more than that, he did it to recover one of the crystals. He didn’t know we intended to return it to the city.”

  Haern could scarcely believe what he was hearing. One of the crystals had gone missing from the city? They were supposed to be a part of Elaeavn, and because of that, he had believed that they couldn’t be removed. If somehow that had changed and the crystals could be taken away, they could have been used by the Forgers.

  Could that be why his father searched for them?

  “How did you stop him?”

  “I used to have different talents,” Galen said.

  “You were an assassin, but what did that mean?”

  “It means that I knew about poisons and ways of killing.”

  Haern stared at him with a renewed interest. Galen intrigued him, but even more so now, especially if he was some sort of poisoner. “How did you do it? Knives? Did you sneak in while people were sleeping and drip it down their throats? Or slip it into their food or drink?” It fascinated Haern, and he couldn’t imagine all that might be involved in becoming a poisoner.

  “Nothing quite so exotic as that. I used it in darts.”

  Haern started to smile before he realized Galen was telling him the truth. “Darts?”

  Galen nodded. “Darts loaded with various concoctions. It wasn’t always about killing, though it often was. There are dozens of different compounds that can be mixed. Some cause a simple and painless death while others cause incredible pain, torment as the person dies. Some are little more than sleepers, concoctions that cause drowsiness. Those are effective when you don’t necessarily want to kill but you need information.”

  “How is it that you could use darts with any accuracy?”

  “I’m not without skill.”

  “Sure, but darts?”

  Galen reached beneath his cloak and pulled out a small, slender object that he rolled between his fingers. “Run,” he growled.

  “What?”

  “Get moving. Run.”

  Haern thought he might be joking, but when he saw the intense expression on Galen’s face, he started running toward Asador. Could Galen actually think to poison him as a demonstration? Great Watcher! Was this some sort of revenge for what his father had done all those years ago?

  He glanced back, and Galen simply stood in place.

  Haern slowed and turned back. “What was this about? What were you—”

  A small shape whistled through the air toward him. It moved so quickly that even with his enhanced Sight, he had a hard time tracking it. It stuck into the meat of his leg.

  Haern grimaced and tensed, waiting for the poison to take hold. When nothing happened, he grabbed the dart from his leg and rolled it in his fingers. It was strangely smooth and streamlined, so he understood how it could travel so quickly through the air. Galen’s accuracy with it impressed him.

  “You didn’t put any poison in it?”

  “Why would I? We’re traveling together.”

  “I… I guess I didn’t know.”

  Galen shook his head, grunting. “No. It’s not poisoned.”

  He held his hand out, and Haern handed the dart back over to him. Galen took it and stuffed it back into a pocket within his cloak before continuing on as if nothing had happened.

  Haern chased after him. “That’s all you do?”

  “It was much more impressive at the time.”

  “How are you so accurate with them?”

  “Practice.”

  “Do you still practice?”

  “Cael asked me to help prepare the tchalit.”

  Haern hadn’t known that, but then, he didn’t spend that much time in the city. “That’s not an answer. The tchalit fight with swords and shields, not darts.”

  Galen closed his eyes. “Some things never leave you.”

  The way he said it suggested that he meant more than only the knowledge of how to throw the darts, but there was also something in his voice that told Haern he shouldn’t push.

  “Where did you learn how to mix poisons?”

  “Are you going to continue to pepper me with questions during the entire journey?”

  “Maybe. You’re answering them.”

  “Is that not how it’s supposed to go?”

  “It’s not all that common for me. My father doesn’t answer my questions. My mother thinks to protect me. They would prefer that I not get involved.”

  “I would prefer my child not get involved, either.”

  “Your child is Elvraeth. They’re protected by the sheer number of their abilities.”

  “They have to master them before they can be of any use. Surely even you can see that.”

  Haern followed him over the hillside. When they reached the edge of Asador, Haern began to slow, looking around him. There were farms along the edge of the city. The homes were simple square structures, all with thatched roofs, and at this time of morning, smoke curled from chimneys. Occasionally they passed men working in fields or tending to livestock. All around them was a sense of activity and normalcy.

  There were farms around Elaeavn, but they were different, mostly containing livestock, such as the sheep the weavers used to make their thaeln wool, the weave so exquisite that he would once have called it the finest made. But then that was before he had seen the Forgers’ wool.

  Maybe they used similar techniques. From what he’d learned about the Forgers, they borrowed much from others, and if they had stolen the technique, it would at least explain how their cloaks were so well done.

  “You never told me where you learned to mix poisons.”

  Galen glanced over at him. “Are we still going to go on about this? You really are persistent.”

  “Are we supposed to do anything different? I just thought—”

  “And maybe that’s a mistake.”

  “What? Me thinking?”

  Galen glared at him for a moment before his gaze softened and he smiled. “It’s a good question, and had you asked me twenty years ago, I probably would have sedated you and walked away. There was a man who trained me after I was exiled from the city. He was a good man, at least as good as anyone who works in our trade could be, and he took me in after I had been banished.”

  Haern noticed how reluctant Galen seemed to utter the word Forgotten. Could he still be hurt by it after all these years?

  But then, wouldn’t Haern be hurt? Getting exiled from your homeland, sent away, would have to hurt.

  “What did you do to get banished?”

  “I attacked one of the Elvraeth.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he hurt someone I cared for. The Elvraeth believed their position granted them immunity from punishment, but he was not immune to my punishment. I did everything within my power to ensure that he suffered for what he had done, and because of that, I was sent away from the city. He was allowed to remain.”

  “Is he still in the city?”

  Galen shook his head. “H
e died a long time ago. I’m not sure that Cael would’ve allowed him to live. He had the gall to attack Della and because of that—”

  “Della. As in the Della?”

  Galen grunted. “You don’t have to talk about her as if she’s some sort of mythical being. She is from Elaeavn, the same as you. The same as me. She might have abilities beyond what many do, but she is not infallible.”

  The stories about Della were incredible. He’d heard them growing up and knew that his father had a special affinity for her, as did his mother. She had helped them in their earliest days, and according to them, had it not been for Della, they might never have gotten together. At times, he wondered what it might have been like to know his parents when they were younger. Had they suffered the same way he did now? Would they even comprehend what it was like to want to better understand your father, not to know what it was like to have that affection?

  And if Galen had a connection to Della, he understood even less how his father and Galen didn’t get along.

  “How did you know Della?”

  “I was her apprentice.”

  “You’re a Healer?”

  Galen smiled. “Not a Healer. A healer.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Mine was a gift of knowledge of medicines and how to mix various naturally occurring substances together. Della’s was more of a connection to the Great Watcher, and her ability stemmed from her time holding the crystal, the same as others who have been granted the gift of Healing.”

  “So that’s how you learned how to poison?”

  “Della didn’t teach me how to poison. She taught me how to heal. When I was with her… those were some of my happiest days, at least until I met Cael. Della allowed me to study and work and feel useful in the city. Before her, I was lost, as many young men are until they find their purpose.”

  Haern looked away. It almost seemed as if Galen were describing him. “How did you go from using that knowledge for healing to using it for poisoning?”

  “It wasn’t a natural transition. It came out of necessity. I was exiled, and Della saw fit to set me up with someone who could take care of me. I’m not sure she ever knew what exactly Isander would do when he trained me, but considering Della, it was possible she did.”

  “She helped get you apprenticed with an assassin?”